City of Glass (in fact, the whole New York Trilogy) by Paul Auster. So f***in' brilliant. And I don't even like mystery, but he's reinvented it.

I adore Paul Auster, so good on you. Have you read any of his others books? If not, I'd like to recommend Moon Palace, Leviathan or Oracle Night for your next Austerian excursion. It really is an excursion; starting a new Auster novel is like returning to a familiar but unpredictable landscape. Oh, and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, has written three wonderful books as well: What I Loved, The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. They have a somewhat similar style when it comes to creating very atmospheric universes inside the novels, but they both bring something unique to it.

I adore Paul Auster, so good on you. Have you read any of his others books? If not, I'd like to recommend Moon Palace, Leviathan or Oracle Night for your next Austerian excursion. It really is an excursion; starting a new Auster novel is like returning to a familiar but unpredictable landscape. Oh, and his wife, Siri Hustvedt, has written three wonderful books as well: What I Loved, The Blindfold and The Enchantment of Lily Dahl. They have a somewhat similar style when it comes to creating very atmospheric universes inside the novels, but they both bring something unique to it.

Thank you, girl. No, I haven't read Auster before (it was a long time before I took my friend up on his recommendation, being leery of genre novels and all, but I'm so glad I did.) I'm taking note of your recs!

I'm a big fan of narrative non-fiction (biographies and history told in the style of a story, rather than in a dry, textbook-like manner).

Some good books I've read recently:

"Brunelleschi's Dome : How a Renaissance Genius Reinvented Architecture" by Ross King (about the architect and construction of the cathedral dome in Florence)

"Isaac's Storm : A Man, a Time, and the Deadliest Hurricane in History" by Erik Larson (about the hurricane that hit Galveston, Texas in 1900 and the botched attempts to predict its path by the then newly-founded National Weather Service)

"The Battle of Stonington: Torpedoes, Submarines, and Rockets in the War of 1812" by James Tertius de Kay (about the unlikely victory of a small Connecticut town over the British navy)